Week 61 - The Coffee Lady Lied!!! ☕️🤢
Happy P day everybody! It's been a crazy week. The seasonal Insomnia is back, so sleeping has been a struggle. On top of that, we work our tails off out here. Every day this week we've worked ourselves to the brink of collapse. "Lights out" is at 10:30 but there were a few days we went to bed around 9:45-10:00 because of how exhausted we were. It's been quite the challenge to wake up, put in 100% effort, get to bed but wake up throughout the night and sleep very little, and repeat the process for 6 days straight. However, in spite of the challenges we pushed through, we gave it our 100%, and saw a lot of success! I finally had a good night's rest last night, so I'm ready to put in full effort again. 💪😤
Gardening Miracle
We have a recently baptized member that lives out in Carman, and we wanted to set up a little service project out there to help them strengthen their testimony and have an extra opportunity to help people around them. So we made a Facebook post on a group out there, and there was one guy who needed help harvesting his garden! His name is Brent, and he had a minor back injury that prevented him from working for a while. With winter coming, there's not a lot of time left to harvest his garden. So we went out to help him, and naturally as we were working we got talking. He's a really nice guy! We had a lot of fun pulling carrots out of the ground with him, and he was curious about our beliefs! We asked him where we go after we die, and he already believes that people don't go straight to Heaven or Hell. He believes that there's some kind of middle step, a waiting room per say. Kinda like the Catholic purgatory, but more positive. He thought his idea would sound weird to us, but to his surprise we were just like "Yep! That's the Spirit World!" We taught him that people in this life who never get a chance to hear about Jesus Christ, will get an opportunity in the Spirit World! We told him a couple other things about the Plan of Salvation, and when we were leaving he told us that he was really glad he decided to talk to us and we answered a lot of his questions! He wants to meet and talk again, so we're going again tomorrow! Also, he gave us 5 grocery bags full of fresh veggies. We're going to have to give away most of them as there's no way we can eat all of them before they go bad 😅
The Coffee Lady
So, there's this place called "Coffee Culture." We've met people there a couple times, and they have really tasty hot chocolate. The first time I had it, that night I had a killer stomachache. I suspected the hot chocolate may have had soy. So, I gave them a call and asked, and the lady on the phone told me that no, the hot chocolate does not have soy. So I brushed it off and assumed it was something else I ate that day. Then we were at Coffee Culture again this week. I took my hot chocolate to go, and after drinking two thirds of it, another stomach ache hit. I was at a computer this time, so I looked it up online and THE HOT CHOCOLATE DOES HAVE SOY. A LOT OF IT. SHE LIED!! IF MY ALLERGY WAS MORE SEVERE SHE COULD HAVE KILLED ME!!! Ok she probably didn't lie, she was just mistaken. But that is kinda concerning. What if someone else with a more severe soy allergy went and got hot chocolate? Seems like a health risk to me. So, I might let them know and suggest they print out a copy of their allergen chart and keep it at the front desk lol.
We Got an Air Hockey Table
This doesn't need a lot of explaining. We were volunteering at a thrift store, and they had a little air hockey table for 5 bucks.
The Troubled Kid
My first week here, we stopped by someone we were teaching so that I could meet them, and on our way out we asked if they knew anyone who could use some hope or guidance in their life. He suggested a kid down the street named Jayden Bahman. He didn't give us an address, but told us they were just down the street and had a brown Ford pickup. For weeks we've kept our eyes open for the brown Ford pickup every time we go down that street. Last week it was finally there, so we stopped what we were doing to go meet them. Jayden's own dad said that Jayden was beyond saving but told us we were welcome to try. This week we had our first 2 lessons with him, and he's a good kid! He's gotten into some trouble but he's really trying to change for the better. Also, turns out his mom grew up as a member of the church!
Sermon of the Storm
This one's kinda funny, we were walking and saw a guy working on his roof. From the ground we yelled up at him and introduced ourselves. After getting acquainted we offered to share a scripture. As Elder Pomares was reading it, the wind picked up causing him to shout even louder to be heard over the wind. Honestly though, I think it worked to our advantage. Elder Pomares spoke with power and authority as he read from the Book of Mormon. Plus, it fits the scripture he read perfectly. Look up Helaman 5:12 and imagine someone powerfully shouting it over a storm. You'll see what I mean. We offered to come back, we did, turns out he and his wife have been looking for a church and they're very interested in ours! We're going back to teach them more this week 😄
That's all for this week! It's a great day to be a missionary!
-Elder Hays